THE LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS - BWS

one

'36-year-old man dead after horrific bear attack near Bath. The father of two was found dead in Royal Victoria Park in an apparent bear attack early this morning, his body mutilated and his heart missing.'

"Bear attack," I muffled to myself as I shut my laptop. There hadn't been a bear sighting in the United Kingdom in over 500 years. But I wasn't surprised that the local authorities had attributed the murder to a bear. What else could have inflicted such wounds? In their eyes, nothing. But to a trained eye? A lot more.

This wasn't an isolated incident. If it had been, it might not have caught my attention. But the number of odd attacks happening all around Somerset had worryingly increased the past few months, and I could no longer ignore them.

"Come on, Dee, let's go pack our bags," I said to the giant ball of white fur lying at my feet.

She jumped to her feet, now fully alert, and started barking, apparently not so excited at the idea of flying to England.

Dee had always been by my side for as long as I could remember. We grew up together, and were as close as could be. She always had my back when we were out hunting, and was a trusty ally when it came to tracking creatures. Despite her good looks— she looked like an arctic wolf with her thick, shiny white fur and bright blue eyes, she was as protective as a mama bear, and wouldn't let anybody come near me, snarling at anyone until they turned away. Her protectiveness was more often than not useful as she saved my ass more than once, but it was also a burden. She didn't make it easy to make friends when she threatened to rip their hands off if they came a little too close to me. But with a life like mine, making friends was the last of my worries. Always being on the road, never staying in the same city for more than a month, or until a case was closed was straining, but it was my life, and had been ever since my parents were killed by a creature when I was fourteen.

I wasn't with them when it happened. I was down the border in Wyoming, spending Spring break at my uncle's, Richard. I owed him everything. After the passing of my parents, he took me in without a shadow of hesitation and offered me love and the comfort of a home when I needed it the most. He was the one who told me the nighttime stories my parents liked to share with me were true, and trained me to defend myself in case I would ever be confronted with what killed my parents, or another creature. He was the one who made me who I am today.

A Hunter.

He had tried to shield me from this life, to have me lead a normal life but how could I, knowing how terrifying the outside world was? The knowledge that blood-thristy creatures lived among us, that their kind had killed my parents was enough for me to give up the idea of a normal life.

Rick was a Hunter, and a skilled one. He taught me everything I knew, despite him forbidding me to hunt. 'It's too dangerous for an inexperienced teenager', he'd said. Of course I didn't listen and after almost getting killed by a vampire when I was sixteen, he made me promise to never go hunting again. And I agreed. Thinking about that night still made me shudder. I had never been so close to death then, and the frequent nightmares I still had to this day were a constant reminder. I gave up hunting for two years. Two full years of going to school, never spending more than six months in the same city or school, making it impossible to make friends. We were constantly on the move, running away from invisible forces as I called them. I never understood Rick's obsession to move us across the country so often. I never complained about it, too grateful to have a roof above my head and food in my belly. About the not-hunting part though, I complained quite often. I could feel it in my blood, the urge to hunt, to rid the world of the evil that roamed it.

To find the creatures that killed my parents.

The chances to find them were slim considering the number of years that had passed and the distance I had travelled since then. And I also didn't know much about the attack.